In recent years, much work has been done on the role of images in Hobbes. But there is an unsolved riddle with regard to the famous frontispiece of Leviathan (1651). Why is there nothing monstrous in the sovereign body depicted, despite the fact that it is named for a Biblical sea monster? In this article it is argued that there is a monster just barely hidden in the image and that the iconographical tradition helps us rediscover this creature. We argue that this monstrosity serves a theoretical and political purpose pertaining to fear and imagery within Hobbes’s overall project and in the political con- text of his time. Moreover, we argue that the discovery of the hitherto unknown monster should make political theory and intellectual history sensitive to the role played by physical images in Hobbes as well as in political thought at large.

In recent years, we have witnessed renewed interest in metaphors in political theory. In this context, Hobbes’s theory of metaphor is of great importance as it helps us understand aesthetic qualities in theory and politics. This article argues that in the work of Hobbes – often portrayed as hostile to the use of metaphor, especially so by himself – there is a remarkable discrepancy between his professed enmity to metaphor and his own use of the very word ‘metaphor’. In a philosopher who censures conceptual imprecision, we ␣nd a fundamentally inconsistent and ever-changing use of this key term. This inconsistency can be accounted for if we relate it to Hobbes’s own often neglected poetics and his theory of the need for conceptual innovation. This will help solve riddles that have haunted Hobbes studies. Moreover, we must discover Hobbes’s theory of metaphor as a source of potential insights into the way in which political and theoretical languages operate with regard to aesthetic pleasure through linguistic change. Hobbes’s theory can thus make us understand the importance of something being new, that is, how theoretical languages need novelty in order to be pleasant and persuasive.

In this article, the author addresses the question why Thomas Hobbes named his philosophical magnum opus for the Biblical monster Leviathan (1651). It is argued that Hobbes was acutely aware of the political power of images. Moreover, the author claims that the image of Leviathan as the state alludes to a contemporaneous interpretation of Leviathan as a crocodile. By reconstructing the history of the crocodile in European thought, from Aristotle via Diodoros Siculus to influential Christian animal allegories, we can discover the kind of images conjured up by Hobbes’s use of the Leviathan. More specifically, it is shown that the crocodile was interpreted as an image of the Devil. According to influential ancient authors, the crocodile can be defeated by a little animal, the ichneumōn, that is devoured by the crocodile yet defeats it from within. Ancient and mediaeval bestiaries allegorically interpreted the animal as an image of the Christ. Furthermore, Hobbes, by many considered an atheist or deist, constructs metaphors and similes likening the Christian religion to something that is swallowed. By having the crocodile represent the state, Hobbes thus esoterically indicates his disagreements with Christianity and his belief that the Christian doctrine is destructive to the state and inferior to the pagan empires with regard to its capability of inducing law-abiding behaviour on the part of citizens.

Recent research on Hobbes has paid great attention to his use of images. Yet a serious possible objection remains: it could be argued that Hobbes relates his own production of imagery neither to politics nor to his theory of perception, and that we have hence no reason to believe that his images are an application of such a doctrine. The purpose of this paper is to show that Hobbes does indeed —in an implicit way— link his image-making and his psychological theory to political order. First, the paper reconstructs Hobbes’s theory of perception and its implications. Second, it is shown that Leviathan covertly establishes the link between the theory of images and political images, by implication including the ones created by Hobbes himself. Third, it is shown that Hobbes’s Leviathan on rare occasions uncovers its role as a device for seeing, for making the reader see the images that Hobbes considers necessary. Finally, we discuss the implications of this discovery for our understanding of Hobbes and for the understanding of visuality and images in political thought.

In this article, it is argued that Kronos' emasculation of Ouranos in Hesiod's Theogony is depicted as the genesis of the seasons and years. Hesiod insistently speaks of "afterwards" in the context of the emasculation, suggesting that this "afterwards" is brought about by the deed. Moreover, Hesiod depicts the seed as the beginning of agriculture, fertility, change, justice, and the future. Furthermore, expressions designating duration and changing time are only employed after the emasculation. Finally, it is pointed out that there are historically pertinent cases of analogous time-creation in the Babylonian Enuma Elis and in Ovid's Metamorphoses. The account of the beginning of time in Hesiod is thus an astonishing feat of intellectual abstraction.

It has often been argued that, notwithstanding his commitment to the authoritarian state, Thomas Hobbes is a champion of the “minimal” version of liberty of conscience: namely, the freedom of citizens to think whatever they like as long as they obey the law. Such an interpretation renders Hobbes’s philosophy more palatable to contemporary society. Yet the claim is incorrect. Alongside his notion of “private” conscience, namely, Hobbes develops a conception of conscience as a public phenomenon. In the following, it is argued that this inconsistency serves the purpose of deception: it holds out the possibility of dissent while making it impossible to utilise. Arguably, moreover, this is the proper hermeneutical approach to take to Hobbes’s inconsistencies in general. Indeed, said inconsistencies ought to alert contemporary normative theorists to the instability of the “minimal” version of liberty of conscience attributed to Hobbes: Hobbes himself, namely, shows that it is insufficient

Hobbes named his work Leviathan for a Biblical monster, yet he mentioned it only three times in the book itself. Curiously, in those three passages Hobbes speaks of Leviathan in wildly divergent ways: as a machine, man, sovereign, state, and god. In this article, the author argues that we can make sense of this radical ambiguity from a perspective found in the late Antique work Peri hermeneias. Specifically, ambiguity is taken to be conducive to fear, and Hobbes thus employs it as an instrument for the purpose of political obedience.

In one of the most controversial scholarly works published in Sweden during the last couple of years, Johan Tralau shows the relevance of alienation as a problem for political philosophy. In modernity, a conception of utopia has been influential in which there is supposed to be no alienation in relation to nature, technology or other people. In contradistinction to the traditional interpretation of the young Karl Marx, Tralau shows that the attempt to do away with alienation entails the dissolution of the individual. In that respect, this utopia can be compared to the totalitarian Worker’s state depicted by the young Ernst Jünger. Tralau argues that Jünger’s vision of the future contains a secret nihilist doctrine according to which his own utopia is an illusion, i. e., a mythological fiction that is supposed to enable man to escape from the alienation inherent in the modern world. On the basis of these destructive historical attempts at liberation from alienation, Tralau expounds an anti-utopian defence of the alienated condition, arguing that alienation is a prerequisite of liberty.

20.

Tralau, Johan

Uppsala University, Disciplinary Domain of Humanities and Social Sciences, Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Government.

This article attempts to present a reconstructive interpretation of the utopian self as portrayed in the writings of the young Marx. The main currents of interpretation claim that utopian society enhances individual liberty. However, the argument of this paper is that Marx’s utopia entails the opposite, namely, the dissolution of the self. If human alienation in relation to nature is to be overcome, then the difference between man and nature must simply be annihilated. Thus, the utopian self appropriates and masters nature completely and turns it into something that is identical to man himself. Likewise, the alienation inherent in human relations is eliminated through the disappearance of the differences between people. This means that individuality is annihilated in the utopian society; if the supersession of alienation means doing away with the difference between the self, the others, and nature, then it also means the end of human liberty.

26.

Tralau, Johan

Uppsala University, Disciplinary Domain of Humanities and Social Sciences, Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Government.

This paper attempts to save Hegel’s claim that tragedy involves mutual guilt on the part of the adversaries in the drama. More specifically, it is claimed that a reading interested in the political theory of tragedy has to work in a different way than has hitherto often been the case. For the claims regarding the ‘subjectivity’ of interpretation can be countered if the interpretation of the play is based on an internal critique, i.e. in a normative assessment proceeding from the principles stated by the adversaries themselves. Hence it is argued that in Sophokles’ Antigone not only Kreon, but also Antigone herself is inconsistent in her attachment to the bonds of philia, of the community of the ‘one womb’ that she wishes to protect. This implies that the tragedy itself shows the self-destructive nature of Antigone’s ‘laws’ and that this normative reading can developed out of the work of art itself.

32.

Tralau, Johan

Uppsala University, Disciplinary Domain of Humanities and Social Sciences, Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Government.